Persuasion, by Jane Austen

I know I've mentioned this before, but aside from Pride & Prejudice, which I first read in 2004, I read all of Jane Austen's novels back to back in the space of a few weeks in the winter of 2005-2006. I enjoyed each one so much that I always wanted to keep going, but in retrospect, this was not a good way to go about it. The books blended together and didn't get the individual attention they deserved. I read Persuasion at the end of this streak and as the years passed I found it to be the one I least remembered, except maybe Lady Susan (which I read second from last). It may be that my memory fails most of them, because I have in the years between 2006 and today watched and rewatched several adaptations – mainly Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Those stories and characters are all so intimately familiar to me now from the movies and miniseries, and eventually from having reread the first two more recently. I don't believe I've ever seen an adaptation of Northanger Abbey, but I think it's the book I remember most distinctly from that spree. I have bits of memories of Mansfield Park too. But Persuasion was a total blank. Apparently when I went back in 2009 and retroactively added and rated every book I'd read in Goodreads, I either didn't remember Persuasion at all, or remembered not liking it, because I gave it only 2 stars. I think by the time I got to it, I was done with Jane Austen.* I should have taken a breather. 

I've been intending to get back to Persuasion for years after seeing some people whose tastes I trust rank is as a favorite by Austen. I would see it mentioned admiringly, or see references to its characters, and strain and fail to remember a single thing about it. Clearly it deserved a reread. I won't list it as my new favorite Jane Austen book or anything, but I'm prepared to say I was very unfair to it the first time around. Perhaps I found Anne dull on my earlier reading? I still did; being about the only reasonable, level-headed character in the story makes her sympathetic, but not very interesting. But this time I enjoyed the story; I enjoyed portrayals of the unreasonable non-level-headed characters; I enjoyed the scenery. 

And while the story itself felt novel (because I remembered nothing of it), the book felt familiar because I'm so much more familiar with Jane Austen now than I was when I first read it. A few weeks ago I watched the recent Andrew Davies adaptation of Sanditon on Masterpiece. Davies is also responsible for the 1996 BBC Pride and Prejudice, and watching Sanditon I noticed him borrowing from himself. (I've seen that Pride and Prejudice enough times that every line is familiar.) What I noticed in reading Persuasion was that Jane Austen also borrows from herself. I saw reflections of so many of her other works in this one. 

* I used to have a rule, which I clearly broke for Jane Austen, about not reading books by the same author back to back. I created this rule some 25 years ago when, immediately after reading Beloved I started Sula and found it unreadable. A couple years later I went back and read Sula and loved it. I decided it was a mistake to immediately pick up another book by the author of a book you read and loved, because what you would really be looking for was a continuation of the earlier book. (Obviously, this rule didn't apply to sequels and series that were in fact continuations of the earlier books.)